REALITY (Riddle of)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2739 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
B. GAINES considered this riddle in a 1984 paper, in which he considered the problem of modeling “reality” (the unique way we have to learn something about it): “… the most outstanding characteristic of human kind is that we all are, and always will be, modellers” (1991, p.356).
Our problem is thus to try to evaluate our “Groping in the dark” (MEADOWS, D., et all — 1982).
GAINES finds and discuss three basic modeling attitudes (1977, p.358-65):
- “- ZERO: There is no method of reality;…
- “- ONE: There is one correct method of reality;…
- “- MANY: There is an indefinite variety of methods of reality”
The first attitude corresponds to radical skepticism; the second one to any exclusive modeling methodology; and the third one, to a kind of positive experimental scepticism.
E. SCHWARZ writes: “We were led to the idea that ”reality“ cannot be reduced to the physical world, but that it has two equally ”real“ aspects: the usual physical world of objects, where energy is the pertinent parameter, and the logical world of relations, where information is the relevant parameter” (1992, p. 773).
In accordance with this view, what we call reality is a combination of energy and information. (itself merely modulated energy) for the human observer, able to construct such a model.
It could be added that “reality” has obviously different meanings in different cultures: see for example “La Pens+e Sauvage” by Cl. LEVI-STRAUSS.
This matter is very much relevant for systemics, because is becomes a firm foundation for the concept of models, which merely aim at representing reality.
N. LUHMANN's view, as interpreted by O. THYSSEN (1995), p. 15) is that: “Reality”is only real in so far as it is observed reality, and no system has access to any “real reality”. WITTGENSTEIN made the same point in a different way. A good example is the sight of stars at night. It is the human observer which creates a “celestial show” out of a complex set of luminous sensations resulting from light emissions from thousands of stars, completely heterogeneous in the space-time dimension .
In this example, it should be noted that:
1- the picture of “reality”is always slightly different for two or more observers
2- no reconstruction of “real reality” would ever be possible because it is absolutely fleeting as time is “running on”
See also
Ontological skepticism